In 2018, Downtown Colorado, Inc. (DCI) kicked off our urban renewal training calendar in partnership with Colorado Municipal League (CML), Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (BHFS), Colorado URA Sponsors, and the City of Fort Collins to facilitate our first 2018 Urban Renewal Authority (URA) Training Series. The first session of our 2018 URA Training held at the Innosphere in Fort Collins on May 11th and included both 101 and 201 sessions to both educate individuals and board members on the basics of urban renewal but also took the conversation further for more advanced urban renewal practice.

Purpose: The City of Fort Collins and the Fort Collins Urban Renewal Authority requested a special Urban Renewal Training held locally as Fort Collins expands their URA Board to include representatives from the County, School, and Special Districts. The City engaged DCI to plan and facilitate this training as DCI is Colorado’s association for building awareness, education, and training for URAs in our state.

Downtown Colorado, Inc. believes that urban renewal is an important tool to encourage good development and land use in Colorado. Building an informed and aware Board of Directors for urban renewal authorities creates a stronger network of urban renewal advocates across the state. This is especially important as many of DCI’s URA members are adapting to comply with recent legislation and to expand partner networks for urban renewal. DCI has received strong feedback that these sessions are helpful and necessary to broaden the understanding of urban renewal, tax increment financing, and the role of the board and staff in fostering quality redevelopment projects.

Hosting Venue Details: Thank you to Innosphere for hosting our event. Innosphere is Colorado’s leading technology incubator accelerating the success of high-impact science and technology startups and scaleups. Innosphere’s programs focus on ensuring companies are investor-ready, connecting entrepreneurs with experienced advisors and early hires, making introductions to corporate and strategic partners to drive customer traction, exit planning, and accelerating top line revenue growth. Once accepted into the program, companies receive ongoing support to ensure they’re getting the know-how to raise the right kind of capital and developing all the resources to grow.

"I joined the URA board after its formation, so it was very helpful for me to know the law behind URA formation and the steps to set it up. I also had many questions about the undertakings/activities and where/what they could include that were answered."

"The session helped me to get a "big picture" view of URAs as they relate to communities, municipalities, developers and special districts"

The pressure is on… you need to find a job, you need to meet new people, you need to advance your career. Let’s be real, networking is intimidating. Especially if you have to approach an established expert and whip up something impressive to say. Or you are trying to break into the ‘old boys club’. Some attempts at networking go better than others and of course there are ton of benefits to going to almost any networking event. However, I personally believe that groups/events that are focused on young professionals can be extremely beneficial.

Downtown Colorado, Inc. has an Emerging Leaders membership. I want to explain what it’s all about and why it works well with other memberships you may have.

Our staff is made up of young professionals

We place AmeriCorps VISTAs (usually young professionals) who are working on a variety of projects all over the state

We work with a wide breadth of professions including planners, architects, engineers, city/state employees, non-profits, and more.

We partner with many other orgs: APA, CNU, CCCMA, CML, EDCC etc. to share a breadth of events with you

We have a Jobs and RFPs page that comes straight to you from our member communities

Discounts to all DCI events

Peers that have similar amount of experience and can speak to the struggle/journey

New ideas

People familiar with the current strategies and methods of finding a job i.e. LinkedIn, networking, informational interviews, etc.

Fresh and fun event ideas. i.e. ‘drink and do and LEARN’

DCI is starting up a series of events for Emerging Leaders that will feature presentations and discussions from Emerging Leaders. This month, we have Mallory Baker talking about the impacts of Millennial Transportation Habits with Happy Hour After. We would like to send out a call for session ideas. If you have a passion project you would like to share, we want to give you a platform to share.

These last few weeks have been busy ones at Downtown Colorado, Inc. (DCI) as we prepare for our Annual Conference, IN THE GAME, April 10-13 in Boulder. For me, that has meant driving from the Arkansas River Valley in Southeast Colorado to the mesas of the Colorado River on the Western Slope in preparation for DCI’s Challenge Studios. This is the first of 3 blog posts highlighting the 2018 DCI Challenge Studio communities.

DCI has partnered with the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs, for this year's Challenge Studio. Senior Fellow Randy Harrision has made the Challenge Studios a focus of his Economic Development course for Master of Public Administration students. Each student has been paired with a community, and his bringing a fresh perspective and their own skillset to assist in coordinating the challenge.

Leadville

We arrive in Leadville on a bright, blue sky morning, with snow covering the ground. Our meeting with local stakeholders included a variety of perspectives. The Main Street program, city leadership, local nonprofits, Lake County, and citizen advisory boards all met with Paige Cipperly (MPA student), Randy Harrison, and myself.

Leadville stakeholders meet with the DCI and CU Denver team.

Downtown Leadville is facing several interrelated challenges—the need to rehabilitate historic buildings, a lack of affordable housing, and the desire to increase downtown vibrancy. Leadville’s Main Street program, led by DCI VISTA Destinee Lukianoff, partnered with City Leaders and connected the issues to form one goal: the rehabilitation of the upper floors of downtown buildings into apartments. Obstacles to meeting this goal, however, include the cost of construction in Lake County, a complex negotiation and administrative process and the desire to maintain Leadville’s National Historic Landmark status.

Buildings like this one in downtown Leadville present tremendous opportunities for upper story apartments.

If you are interested in historic preservation, housing, architecture, real estate development, or downtown revitalization, come to the DCI IN THE GAME Conference, April 10-13 and be a part of the two day intensive workshop with Leadville community leaders as they work to transform underutilized community assets!

Monument

Monument, located along I-25 between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs, has grown rapidly in recent years—but the historic downtown, dating to the 1880s railroad years, remains underappreciated by both locals and visitors. The challenge for the community is how to build civic pride and vision—to encourage locals to come downtown, to ensure that those on I-25 know about downtown Monument, and t bring new projects- from temporary pop up events to ideas for new infill construction—to vacant spaces downtown.

Local leaders show off downtown Monument.

Daniel Summers (MPA Student) and I met with dedicated leaders representing the public, private, and nonprofit sectors at the packed Coffee Cup Coffee to discuss the challenge over brunch. We toured the downtown, and discussed the obstacles to improving engagement—including a commuter population, historic development trends, and wayfinding signage that could better direct people downtown.

However, the community has great resources to work with, including strong leadership, social media platforms, a wonderful downtown park, and a beautiful setting at the base of the foothills. Visual design expert Jim Leggitt and photographer Caleb Alvarado will be working to inspire workshop participants with new visions for downtown. If you are interested in exploring how community members and local groups can take ownership and pride in downtown, and build a vision for the future, join us in Boulder for our IN THE GAME Conference April 10-13 to be a part of the solution.

Lyons

Lyons has faced great challenges following the 2013 floods, which added further pressure to housing and strained local businesses. Wayfinding and signage, access to downtown, and parking have became critical concerns for the community. As one of the Challenge Studio communities in Boulder County, DCI is thrilled to have community leaders come to Boulder for the IN THE GAME conference.

Megan Garn (MPA Student at the School of Public Affairs) visited the community with DCI Executive Director Katherine Correll to prepare for the challenge studio. At the workshop, local leaders and stakeholders are looking forward to building strong relationships with entities throughout Boulder County, and to problem solving with thinkers from throughout the state and beyond.

If you are interested in housing, wayfinding, parking, and supporting small business in a walkable downtown setting, join the Lyons Challenge Studio during the DCI Conference!

It’s still February, so we’re still celebrating love! The love we have for Colorado communities is so strong we want to make it possible for more people to share in our 2018 Vibrant Downtowns Event, IN THE GAME from April 10-13 in Boulder. This conference will bring together all of the lovers and champions for downtowns and it is an excellent opportunity to have real conversations about real challenges and also come up with real solutions.

A great way to show your love for your downtown is by submitting a photo to our Crushing on Colorado contest. This contest is our favorite way to showcase the love we have for our state while, at the same time, starting a friendly competition. Crushing on Colorado are the #1 and #2 ways to win a free registration to IN THE GAME.

#1 The community that submits the most photos will win one free registration

#2 The community’s photo that receives the most votes will win one free registration

The details to enter are below.

We also want to show love to people that are as passionate about learning and growing as we are. Collaboration is so important to the work we do in downtowns. That is why, we would like to offer this deal.

#3 Anyone who gets three new people to register for the conference, will get one free. (You must identify the three people you will be bringing along with you in an email to communications@downtowncolorado.inc)

We are looking forward to all of the great things in store! Visit our conference page here and check out our Schedule at a Glance.

Crushing on Colorado details: Crushing on Colorado is a movement to celebrate the people, places, and objects that make Colorado a wonderful place to live!Share a photo of you hugging your "crush" (a favorite Colorado building, business, monument, artwork, or person). Use the hashtag #CrushingOnColo on Facebook or Twitter to enter at http://woobox.com/ehc9jj.

As we head into 2018, we want to thank all of our members and all of the wonderful people we met around the state this year and reflect on all of the discussions, workshops, and solutions that came out of all of our adventures. We celebrated our 35th year in 2017 and every year we are constantly working to bring relevant training and topics to our communities. The themes of our work in 2017 were affordable housing, more rural and small business training, growing VISTA program (which doubled from 4 sites to 8 sites throughout Colorado!), urban renewal and other special district meetings, new partnerships and members, and much more. We hope to continue our work on these topics this coming year while also weaving in new themes. The following summary is just a snapshot of some of the work we’ve done. It does not capture every wonderful event throughout the entire year.

A huge part of what DCI does is provide technical assistance to our communities in innovative forms. We started off the year focused on perhaps the most pressing topic in Colorado, affordable housing. We brought together stakeholders working at many levels, including developers, designers, municipalities (regional and state) for two workshops early in the year, Grand County and Buena Vista. In November, a third Rural Housing Workshop was held in Clear Creek County. We are continuing our innovative approach in January within Clear Creek County with a pilot program in Idaho Springs considering long term development impacts and best practices. During 2017, DCI also completed Downtown Assessments in Parachute and Sheridan. If you are interested in reading some of our technical assistance reports, head to our Reports and Case Studies page. Here are some testimonials from these events.

“The most useful take away was learning about different ways communities can fund affordable housing and the great examples presented that demonstrated public-private partnerships”

“Using real-world examples is good. Helps one think about different approaches that could be adapted to, or inform, our unique community situations.”

"It was a great networking opportunity. I took away a great understanding of what the next steps need to be to move forward."

Also during 2017, we contributed to the dialogue on homelessness with two City Builder Forums. We then worked on addressing business training later on in the year with our Downtown Institutes for Business in Grand Junction, Hot Sulphur Springs, Yampa, Craig, Monte Vista, Buena Vista, and Walsenburg. These business trainings served to give businesses hope that they can thrive in an Amazon world. Here are some testimonials from survey respondents in those communities:

"I really appreciated the fresh approach for helping small businesses by giving new ideas and confirming that we do not have to spend large amounts of money to be competitive in today's business world."

"Knowing that we are capable of providing the services and products that a bigger city may offer is in reach as long as we set the "bar" above and beyond our norm."

A tour of Breckenridge as part of our 2017 Vibrant Downtowns Event, IN THE GAME

The highlight of our year is always our annual Vibrant Downtowns event, IN THE GAME. We had a wonderful conference in Breckenridge in May aimed at getting our communities to put some skin in the game. You can check out the recap of the entire conference here. We flipped the format on the tradition ‘talking heads’ conference and introduced Challenge Studios, workshops based on a challenge facing a participant or a participant’s community that are designed to transform a community’s difficult challenges and problems into promising opportunities. Youcan see last year’s Challenge Studios reports here. The Challenge Studio format will continue in 2018 in Boulder. The deadline to submit your challenges for next year is January 31st (remember, we are here to help!). Also be sure to register for the conference in April 2018 by February 1st to take advantage of early bird pricing! After you register, be sure to nominate a project for Governor's Awards!

We are so excited for 2018 and for many more informative, innovative, and fun events. We continue to strive to serve our Colorado communities with everything we do and we hope you will be a part of the future of vibrant downtowns in Colorado.

What is Greenbuild, you ask? It is, first and foremost, the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. However, it is so much more than that. Green building is not just about technical solutions and energy efficiency, it is about making better places for people and creating a built environment that does its best to work with the natural environment. It’s about resiliency, historic preservation, community building, and most of all, humans. At Greenbuild, I learned about Green Communities in Massachusetts, an Urban Farming Initiative in Detroit, a discussion for model zoning code for resilient communities, and The Past & Future City.

Below: Stephanie Meeks of the National Trust for Historic Preservation speaking about the Past & Future City and the importance of historic buildings for revitalization

All of these projects have lessons for Colorado and our downtowns. A main theme underlying all of these sessions was how communities can form partnerships and use policy and governance tools to create a better environment to live in. Whether it’s renewable energy, community gardening, updating zoning regulations, or historic preservation, all of these can create more vibrant downtowns.

Colorado is full of independent communities that make up a beautiful, diverse fabric of environments, people, and opinions. I wanted to share some interesting ideas that I took away from these sessions:

> A statewide program can work with ALL types of cities and towns to advance projects that work in the context of every community as long as every community can define its own wants and needs. A statewide program creates an incentive for a community to work together towards a common goal that will benefit everyone.

Example: Massachusetts Green Communities, run by the state,provides grants, technical assistance, and local support from Regional Coordinators to help municipalities reduce energy use and costs by implementing clean energy projects in municipal buildings, facilities, and schools. The program partners with local utilities to start energy challenges in which people participate in energy audits (designed to improve energy efficiency). If enough people sign up, the utility company often gives away grant money.

> Every community goes through stressors and shocks but does our current zoning inhibit us from adapting to these situations?

Example: If there is an event that inhibits a historic building’s function on Main Street such as a store closure, a natural disaster, a fire, etc. Is there a place the displaced business owner can go to restart their business? Is it relatively easy to change the use of this building to something else? Is there even enough money to restore the building to modern standards? Changing zoning codes could help make solutions to these dilemmas easier.

> We all know historic preservation is important in our downtowns. But did you know that historic buildings are engines that create jobs, grow the economy, and keep cities more affordable, sustainable, and dynamic? When compared to an area with all new buildings, an area with a mix of buildings has more new business jobs, more small business jobs, 27% more affordable housing stock, and more hidden density in population, businesses, and housing.

Collaboration is at the core of solving problems and making our communities better places. If you have a challenge you are facing that you would like to solve through collaboration with other communities and industry experts, consider submitting a challenge for our Challenge Studios. These Challenge Studios will take place at DCI’s annual Vibrant Downtowns IN THE GAME Event on April 10-13 in Boulder.

Recently, I had the opportunity to to travel to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA) National Summit due to a generous scholarship from CDFA.! If you have not been to a CDFA event, I highly encourage it. Presentations I attended included: affordable housing in Greenville, SC and August GA; the redevelopment of the Baltimore Harbor (currently the largest private development); revitalization efforts in North Miami Beach; and adaptive reuse of a warehouse building in Peoria, IL.

As a downtown professional, working to assist vibrant commercial districts, I find that there is so much more to learn about development finance . Below are 3 takeaways I came up with for Colorado downtown districts:

1.Project Focus Should Start Broad and then Narrow In

David Corbin, from SMC Terminus Group, presented as part of a panel on the Assembly development in the northeast Atlanta metro area. The team discussed their approach to stakeholder engagement, and forming a team with the idea of starting broad, with as many people as possible, and then narrowing as you go.

Starting with a narrow approach could be difficult as it may a) offend stakeholders that weren’t included, b) miss important stakeholders in key early processes c) miss key resources in the early stages of a project.

Another key advantage of starting broad is to “socialize the cost” of development (according to Corbin). Broadly speaking, this means that the cost (including in-kind costs and time) should be shared by as many benefiting entities as possible.

2.Learn Key Elements of Development Finance

For me, the best way to learn is a combination of reading, hearing presentations (case studies are best) and talking to the professionals involved. The CDFA Practitioners Guide to Economic Development Finance offers a great introduction. DCI is a great resource to hear presentations especially for Colorado professional (In the Game Event, April 2018), meet other professionals (DCI Upcoming Events) and read (Join DCI for members only resources on URAs & TIF, DDAs, Historic Tax Credits, and much more).

What is development finance? It’s all the financing tools besides traditional bank loans that make projects happen. It is essential to public oriented projects, and becoming increasingly necessary to make anything happen. Some examples:

Development Finance requires creativity- the market alone no longer makes publicly oriented projects happen. I saw this repeatedly in examples at the CDFA Summit:

A) Augusta, GA Housing & Community Development Laney Walker Bethlehem Revitalization. City or URA is buying dilapidated properties, and leasing to a developer to build low-cost, small footprint, high quality homes.
B) Great Falls Montana, West Bank Landing Project – a variety of funding sources (including TIF, private financing, banks, MicroBusiness loans, etc.) are making this rural project happen.
C) Port Covington, Baltimore- has put a focus on local workforce development, including local construction jobs, and local jobs in new establishments. Sagamore, the developer, has emphasized community outreach early on as well- this can save money over the long term, as community needs are brought into the project from the beginning.

In honor of Small Business Saturday, we wanted to highlight all of the things DCI has been up to the past few months to support small business in all of our communities. We have been busy putting on business institutes all around the state including Grand Junction, Castle Rock, Hot Sulphur Springs, Craig, Monte Vista, Buena Vista, and one more event upcoming in Walsenburg. These institutes have focused on small business thriving in the Amazon world and how these business can use placemaking, creativity, and savvy marketing techniques to bring in new customers and keep the returning customers loyal. If you would like a business training like this in your community, consider writing us a letter of support from your business for our next grant application.

We have also been working with Local First Colorado to bring awareness to the shop small mentality that is so important to keep our downtowns vibrant. As I am sure you have heard, DCI partnered with Local First Colorado (LFC) back in October. Local First Colorado is a new organization that is dedicated to bringing awareness to the “Shop Local” movement and encourage Coloradans to support local business first.DCI and LFC determined this partnership advanced the missions of both organizations as each aims to strengthen Colorado’s local economies. LFC is introducing a new event called “Try Local First Week”.Kicking off on Small Business Saturday, Try Local First Week is one week dedicated to asking local consumers to re-think daily habits and shift everyday actions to try a local business before heading to the big-box stores or ordering online.

Last week, DCI and LFC toured three local business in Downtown Loveland to highlight Small Business Saturday and Try Local First Week. Check out the article that was written about the event. All week, Local First has been highlighting events and businesses all over the state to let people know why shopping local first matters and where they can go to do it. Go to their Facebook and Instagram pages to see all of the resources there.

DCI’s commitment to small business continues through to our conference in April, where business can submit challenge studios. This is an opportunity to for businesses to submit a challenge that may not only effect them but also the surrounding businesses and the community at-large. TheseWorkshops are based on a challenge facing a participant or a participant’s community that are designed to transform a community’s difficult challenges and problems into promising opportunities. Participants will work side-by-side with leading industry experts and local peer networks to craft problem-solving plans. The solutions can be transformative for a small business and the community they live and work in.

If you believe in the work DCI is doing, please consider donating to our cause on Colorado Gives Day on December 5th.

Maria Cocchiarelli Berger has been an artist her whole life, a public artist actually, working on murals, garden reclamations and anything that speaks to the environment, inequity and racism in our culture. She has a BA in Art History and a BFA in painting, but her “life” degree should be in perseverance.

With the idea that she would go for her MFA in New York, so she could teach art on a college level, she decided in the summer of 2001 to apply for an art program that was housed in the World Trade Towers. Sadly, all her slides and application went up in smoke on September 11. But she pushed on and got her MFA at Queens College, City of NY University, where she reconnected with a longtime friend and colleague, Brendt Berger. It was destiny as they grew closer and discussed how they each had amassed a personal art collection throughout the years from their artist friends and associates. Maria and Brendt married in 2006, and the idea of creating a permanent home for their life-long art collections was just a “twinkle in their eyes.” That twinkle became a reality when they started renovating a building in downtown Walsenburg, the Roof and Dick. The building would open in October 2007 as theMuseum of Friends. The museum is now listed inThe Art in America Guide to Museums, Galleries and Artists, as the only counterculture museum in the U.S. and the Roof and Dick building was put on the Historic Register for Colorado in 2016!

The art was all part of their personal collections and grows each and every day with another generous gift. The collection includes the works of over 250 artists including Richard Mock, Robert Rauschenberg, Yoko Ono, Peter Max and Dean Flemming, to name a few. It was Brendt’s relationship with Dean Flemming that led to his discovery of Walsenburg and the building that would eventually become the Museum of Friends. Brendt and Dean would visit Drop City on their trips to California. Eventually, Dean would create his own art community in Libre, where he lives even today and Brendt bought a place in Gardner. He and Maria eventually moved closer to the town.

And so Walsenburg became their home and their love of artcoincides with the Bergers’ interest in developing the downtown area of Walsenburg and raising the visibility and awareness of contemporary art in Walsenburg and the region. Indeed, Maria says that “Walsenburg and the area around it, is a burgeoning artists community.” Maria and Brendt quickly realized that being an advocate for the museum would also involve being an advocate for Downtown Walsenburg. And, this is where DCI comes into our story!

Being a DCI Member - Maria has been a member of DCI for three years now. She learned about DCI in 2012, when DCI did a Downtown Assessment and Plan for the City of Walsenburg. Since then, they have implemented many pieces of that plan and earlier this year DCI had a URA Training event there. And at the 2017 DCI Annual Conference in Breckinridge, the city was accepted as one of the conference’s Challenge Studio’s. Maria was a participant in the challenge about sustainable financing for cultural amenities.(Read the full report on this Challenge Studio here!)Maria said “Being on a Challenge Studios with our peers really gave us clout! It helped us talk about who to collaborate with in the community and how to discover mutual ideas in order to find support for all the cultural amenities in the downtown area.”

Join DCI as we help celebrate and support Museum of Friends GALA to raise funds to support their $199,000 award from History Colorado! In order to get the award, they have to raise another $66,000 in matching funds! We will be in Walsenburg all day and night December 2nd! From 4:30 PM – 6 PM, DCI will be having a Downtown Institute for Business: Small Business Thriving in an Amazon World.

Recently DCI partnered with CNU to bring Atlanta architect Eric Kronberg from KronbergWall Architects to speak about why certain historic structures don’t get revitalized. It all comes down to CODE. Oftentimes these projects get underway, and one little requirement such as parking, sprinklers, or ramps could bring the whole project down. These little requirements turn out to be not so little anymore.

Downtowns and the historic buildings in them are important “because they already exist, they are economic engines, they allow for incremental development”. They create the place and the value (actual land value, property values, intrinsic values). Historic downtowns value people more than cars and communities more than corporations. We all know that these historic buildings were built long before code regulations making revitalization for modern uses very difficult. Here are some of the biggest (expensive) issues developers run into:

Ø PARKING REQUIREMENTS: You can build a small apartment for the space of two parking spaces. It is also EXTREMELY expensive to build parking forcing projects above budget and making something like affordable housing impossible.

Ø Grandfathering: Typically historic buildings are ‘grandfathered’ into zoning however if you change anything, it has to comply with current codes. This includes changing use and additions.

Ø Sprinklers: The sprinkler requirements are often very expensive depending on the residential/commercial use. The International Existing Building Code is intended to provide alternatives for existing buildings though many jurisdictions haven’t adopted it yet.

Know your codes. If you would like to read more about ADA Requirements head to Eric Kronberg’s blog.